Tuned low, a TH's delay can be audible which isn't a problem for many folks, but for those like me that are will require a separate digital delay unit since there's not enough built into a typical HT receiver and none in a stereo rig.

That said, properly damped pipe horns have as good or better SQ than an IB unless it's tuned somewhat lower than it using very low Fs, Qts drivers over a two-three octave pass-band and since a TH has an even greater acoustic damping due to it being essentially a 6th order band-pass alignment taken to its logical extreme, it's only one notch down from a humongous reactance annulled back loaded (sub) woofer horn.

All that said, the IB ultimately has more bass extension in a typical room (though it may be moot due to lack of source material) and if the TH doesn't unload before the room's gain curve can protect it, then it must have a high pass filter, further reducing its usable BW. I haven't looked at it in detail, but TD's well aware of all this and I did notice that it was one of the primary performance goals.

For folks who have a real problem with adding a lot of digital signal manipulation a traditional well damped pipe horn (or four ) is probably a safer choice.

So, the short answer is it depends.

GM

__________________Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.

Just wanted to drop in and say a couple things about this. First let me say that I'm still learning about the build and design process of horn subwoofers, but I've heard 3 subs from Danley at a subwoofer meet I had at my place in April. I was lucky enough to have Ivan Beaver from Danley bring up their CS-30, TH-SPUD, and TH-50 subwoofers up along with a ton of equipment for measuring and driving the subs. Tom Danley contacted me and another member of AVS and Hometheatershack "Ricci" about this project a little after the meet. He's been playing around with it for months to get it right and it looks like it's pretty much done and close to being shipped. I'm getting one of the prototype units to assemble and test out. Right now I have an Elemental Designs 18" in an LLT enclosure that has served me well, but after hearing the TH-50 made me feel like I was missing out on a lot of things, headroom being the biggest.

E-mailing with Tom the past few months has been great. His level of knowledge is astounding. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge and experience.

This subwoofer looks to be a very nice well built subwoofer that should really give just about any subwoofer a run for the money. The price for the kit is TBD but we've been given possibilities of under $1000 for the flat packed 13 ply baltic birch and drivers. The kit should assemble pretty easily like a bookshelf or desk bought at a wal-mart or the like. That works well for me because I'm not that great yet at woodworking.

This should be pretty fun and will make me look at building some more capable main loudspeakers, something that will better keep up with this subwoofer.

Thanks for the information and links you guy's, this has been a really interesting read.. Some people are truly innovators, and Tom is certainly one of the best out there... This quote as answered by a employee at Danley Sound Labs really says it all for me

"What's the midbass performance like on these units? Does a bass guitar sound like a bass guitar? How's the integration to the mains?"

"As Brandon has already stated, you have to hear it to believe it. I've had Lucas Film folks tell me our system is so accurate they heard things missed in the mastering process on a clip I'd played in a trade show demo room. I've been told by the then head of Dolby Labs that he'd never heard audio as good as ours. On the IMAX project up in Chicago, the contractor who installed the system, Media Merge had personnel spend hours relistening to music and video clips because they were hearing details they'd never heard before. On a recent tour of Turner Field with some extremely influential audio professionals (you see one's initials all the time) someone said, "here we are in an empty 50,000 seat MLB stadium, listening to audio that sounds better than most of the Cedia show demos!
By background before having a 25 year career in audio I made a living as a professional musician after which I apprenticed and became a registered piano technician. I have a very good set of ears and I can tell you, every time I hear one of our systems it it makes me smile. I have the coolest job on earth, hanging with Tom and Ivan and helping folks remember why they love audio!"

Had a thought that it would be neat to see a collaboration between Tom Danley and John from Acoustic Elegance... Perhaps John could offer a better driver as an upgrade to the modded Lab12???, and perhaps even some other designs by Tom etc...

Had a thought that it would be neat to see a collaboration between Tom Danley and John from Acoustic Elegance... Perhaps John could offer a better driver as an upgrade to the modded Lab12???, and perhaps even some other designs by Tom etc...

I believe Danley's supplier for drivers is one they have been dealing with for a while. John was going to send some subwoofer(s) down to my subwoofer meet in April but he was so backed up on orders after a meet that he attended in WI that I think he ended up not having any to spare. I've had some conversations with John on PM a couple times and he really knows his stuff. He's another one of those types that has just been in the audio industry for so long that it's just second nature to him. His products show that quality too. I've still yet to hear his stuff, but I can't think of a single user review of his products that had anything bad to say about them.

I'm expecting my kit in the next day or so. It shipped freight (it is rather large)from Danley in GA yesterday. Everything except the drivers shipped. They had a large order go through right as the info was released about the kit and it wiped them out. Tom Danley is sending me two drivers he has at his house and hopefully I can be building by the weekend. I will upload pics as I take them and will try to answer questions regarding the build as much as I can. I'm very excited about this and a bit weary at the same time. Weary because I know what this thing will be able to do and I know my small bookshelf mains won't be able to keep up. I don't listen at extreme volumes so for normal listening I won't have a problem, but on days I'm feeling like cranking my system the mains will be running no a go cart engine and this thing will be more like a drag racer. Guess I may jump over and start looking at the various speaker builds to try and find something that will keep up and stay on a decent budget.

For those of you who didn't see the update to the avs thread yesterday, the enclosure package arrived. It's HUGE. See pics...

Hopefully the drivers will come in today. I don't want to start building till they come in because I want to be able to play it as shortly after building as possible. Looks like I will have to wait for glue and silicon to dry.

I've got my kit in too. Still waiting on drivers so it'll be a few days until I get it completed. It's really big, but surprisingly it doesn't feel so heavy despite being listed at 336lbs shipping weight.